And she buried her face upon my shoulder, and sobbed as though her overburdened heart would break.
ON the following morning I entered Dr. Macfarlane’s consulting-room in response to a letter from him.
“Your foundling is a lot better, Pickering,” exclaimed the great lunacy specialist, rising and giving me his hand. “I’ve got him round at last. Not only is he quite rational, but he has found his voice, or as much of it as he will ever have. Brand, the surgeon, has discovered that he has an injury to the tongue which prevents him properly articulating.”
“Is he quite in his right mind?” I asked, eagerly.
“As right as you are, my dear fellow. I thought from the first it was only temporary,” he answered. “He has told me his story, and, by Jove! it’s a remarkable one.”
“Oh, you’d better come with me down to Ealing, and hear it from his own lips. I’m going to High Elms in half an hour.”
When the Mysterious Man entered the doctor’s private room at the asylum I saw at once what a change had been wrought in him. Neatly dressed in blue serge, his grey hair was well-trimmed, and he no longer wore that long Rip Van Winkle beard of which the hands of the _Thrush_ had made such fun. He was now shaven, with a well-twisted white moustache, smart, fresh-looking, and no longer decrepit. He walked with springy step, and seemed at least twenty years younger. Only when he spoke one realized his infirmity, although he seemed an educated man. His mouth emitted a strange, hollow sound, and several letters he could not pronounce intelligibly.
“I have, I believe, to thank you, doctor,” he said, politely, as he came in. “You were one of those who rescued me.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I found you on board the old ship, the _Seahorse_, and we took you with us to the steamer.”
“Ah!” he sighed. “I had a narrow escape, doctor—a very narrow escape. I’ve been mad, they say. It’s true, I suppose, otherwise I should not be here, in an asylum. But I assure you I recollect very little after I boarded that coffin-ship.”
I watched his dark eyes. They were no longer shifty, but calm and steady. He was quite sane now, and had at Macfarlane’s invitation seated himself between us.
“We are all very much interested in you,” I said. “Will you tell me the whole story?”